When I started going to University, I was intent on somehow doing something within the healthcare field. Why not? I was ‘smart’ enough to pass my high school accelerated program with flying colors. I was ‘smart’ enough to understand biology and chemistry and all those sciences that a lot of people shy away from. But most of all I was ‘smart’ enough to go to professional school because my parents thought so.
My whirlwind journey through University
During my first year in undergraduate, I decided I was going to pharmacy school. I took a couple of science courses, did okay, and I passed the pharmacy entrance exam after the end of my freshman year. But the more I was exposed to pharmacy, the more I realized I didn’t want to do it.
By the middle of my second year, I decided I was going to medical school instead. I took a couple more science courses, did okay at those, did a couple of workshops sponsored by the pre-med society at my school, and started studying for the medical school entrance exam. By the middle of my third year, after exposure to that field, I decided I didn’t want to put up with all that, either.
After that I decided I was interested in becoming a dentist. At the end of my third year, I graduated with my bachelors degree but I continued taking science courses at another university that had more options. Did okay at those, studied some more, and even attended a two week dental program in New Jersey at the beginning of 2009. Two months after that, dental school was thrown in the back burner as I became convinced that the healthcare field just wasn’t doing it for me all together.
At first it felt like everything was going to fall apart. Eventually I realized that revelation gave me more freedom than I ever felt in my life.
Be practical? You can kiss my arse
Looking back over the past few years, I remember how lost I felt and how torturous it felt to not know what I was supposed to be doing. In any case, I’m glad I went through all that. Because now I’m more sure of myself and where I’m supposed to be going.
However I’m sure I caused my parents a lot of grief because they would always be asking me when was I going to settle down and just pick a field, damnit! As far as they were concerned, by the time I graduated, they didn’t care what I decided to do … that is, within the healthcare field. Anything else was scum to them (although, ironically, neither of them works in healthcare).
I think they could tell my heart wasn’t into it all along, but their reasoning is to just go to professional school, get it out of the way, and follow your dreams later. Why? “Because, it’s secure. And practical.”
Does that really make sense? To go through all those years of training, sink myself into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, spend the next 20-30 years paying it off, and then follow my dreams when I’m too tired to care? Hell, I’m tired thinking about all that now! Please!
Did any of you find yourself in that situation: where you have to choose between something practical and something impractical?
Impractical is the new practical
Today, I believe we’ve gotten it all mixed up. What we think is practical really isn’t and what we consider to be impractical is probably the most practical thing you can do in the world. Too frequently, being practical means trying to follow a path that other people decided for us. It also has a tendency to mean going against everything you really want to do. How practical can that be, fighting an uphill battle all the time? How practical is it to resist yourself all the time?
I’m not bashing anyone who wants to go into healthcare. It takes someone special to look at all the challenges that comes with it and still wants to do it regardless of how much they get paid or how much time they have to put into it. So my hat is off to you.
Most of you reading this probably never considered going into healthcare. But you don’t have to in order to know what I’m talking about. There’s a lot of pressure all over the place to just pick something that makes you the most money with the least risk and stick to it. After that, there’s a lot of pressure to spend that money constantly trying to impress other people and make it look like you have more than them, when you really don’t anyway.
Let me try and put it another way: It’s not the career title that matters, it’s how the career helps you reach your true self. The title just makes it easier to explain what you do to other people. Trying to explain who you truly are will get you a lot of blank stares. Other people aren’t you and won’t even get you 100%. So if you’re thinking too much about the title, dare I say you’re taking the path of the most resistance.
It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission
Trying to conform to other people and what other people want of you is hard. And conforming to what other people think you should be doing is essentially a resistance of yourself. It may seem easier to just do what everyone else is doing, but in the long run you’ll be paying for it. In the long run, all that effort you spent trying to suppress yourself is going to blow up in your face because you’re going to answer to yourself one way or another.
I think it’s much easier to resist everyone else. Why? Because it’s much easier to please one person (yourself) than it is to please a bunch of people who have also spent a lot of time resisting themselves and are trying to keep you down with them. In other words, those people will never be satisfied and they’re hell bent in making sure you stay unsatisfied as well.
It only looks harder to go against every one else, but as you gain steam, suddenly what everyone else thinks and does has less and less significance to you. And even after you make major mistakes along the way, I’m willing to bet that it will still be all worth it. If you’re going to “risk” everything you’ve got, you might as well bet on yourself. Because even if you lose everything, you’ve still got yourself. What do you have left if you attach yourself to a title or a salary or anything other than yourself?
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Very good post, I was thinking about university and your write a post just to help me
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It appears to me people identify themselves as what they have in terms of a title, a degree, a class, income level, the car they have, the house they have. (They don’t own the house or car, it’s not an asset, you just got a huge loan, not a huge paycheck.)
As well what people do is compare each other by the results they have to then evaluate here they are on the ladder of success. Everyone compares results in very formal way.
“How’s the wife, kids?”
“Still working at that job?”
“You still enjoy it”
And someone young in high school who has been around this sort of mentality will get into battle mode and think what is the fastest way short of robbing a bank that i can compete with these people and for them to accept me.
Ever notice how someone who is in school is some how has a better future then someone who does not? I think these people don’t know who Bill Gates is. (Or any other rich person who quit school at some point to pursue something better.)
What people look for is instant results. They get those results with debt, loans, crime. They want to feel good, so what do they do? Take time to explore themselves and truly understand who they are and what they are doing or get some comfort food, drugs, alcohol, etc.
In the long term these people are nothing but projections of an image to society. They are no one but the tittle, the class etc.
In the past those who have walked a different path have walked it alone most of the time.
People are constantly just looking for an answer that will give them instant anything without understanding what they did or what they will have to do for the rest of their lives because of that choice.
They think getting a loan for a house is good because everyone is doing it and there is no other way.
Bottom line is they don’t want to understand but rather follow along on a safe path that is sweeped in the summer and plowed in the winter. They always wait for a leader to do things first and then they will follow if it looks safe. These people have imprisoned themselves in their minds because the prison is the safest place for them. They like the prison, they will protect the prison. They endorse the prison. They are the modern day slave.
I don’t know why people think that studying a specific field and making hundreds of thousands of dollars is ‘secure’. Seriously, with all that money you could get the freedom to start so many things and try what you really want to do. Anyways I think you did the right thing when you left your course multiple times, because at least you tried and realized it wasn’t the right solution for you.
Oscar – freestyle mind´s last blog ..10 Ways to Create Value in What you Do
Heya Valerie!
Interesting reading this, thanks for being honest and sharing your story.
I know what you feel like because I went through the same thing for almost 2 years, trying to decide what i want to do.
I still havent solved it, but i’ve stopped worrying about it. Ive decided i want adventures, travel, good friends and financial independece and how its going to happen doesnt really matter. I have no real plan for the future but I know things will work out somehow, so Im just going to work hard at what I enjoy doing and build something up
I just watched the movie Coco Chanel, really inspiring, about how she was a normal and poor working girl with big dreams, and eventually followed her passion of designing hats which nobody believed in, and look what she achieved when she followed her passion and interests.
Have a rockin day
Diggy – Upgradereality.com´s last blog ..How to Resist the Temptation of Junk Food
@ Mac: Thanks for the comment. I do notice a lot of people aim for the most prestigious title and the biggest guaranteed paycheck they can get. This is a really big thing within the pre-med group of students (and to a lesser extent, the pre-dental students). A lot of them are very preoccupied with making money, when in fact there are easier ways to make money than being a doctor. Medical school is a lot of work and if anyone put in that kind of effort in a business, they could probably be making as much as the average doctor anyway. The only difference is most people see starting a business as riskier than going to medical school, but I fail to see a huge difference. How is taking a $200,000+ loan (and that doesn’t even come with a house or a car) to take on more debt in the future and skyrocketing malpractice insurance less risky than starting a business? Not to mention there is a lot of pressure for doctors to act rich as well.
That said, not all wealthy and successful people are college drop-outs. A lot of people are quick to point out Bill Gates because hey, dropping out of college and still striking it rich is sensational, in a culture that is stuck to the idea that college = money. There are many more rich people who have gone to college and even graduate school so college experience doesn’t correlate to wealth at all.
@ Oscar: I agree. As I said in my last comment, if most people put as much effort into their own business as they do with studying, they could do well for themselves. Maybe not rich but financially independent. I just think that people shy away from things that don’t have specific direction and college provides some sense direction (you must take X classes to get Y degree).
Looking back I’m glad I did all of that, too. Making myself rethink everything every year has really helped me to open my mind to different possibilities.
@ Diggy: You’re not alone, I can’t give you an exact answer for what I’m trying to do and I realized it doesn’t matter, as long as I get it. Of course, it sucks to explain that to other people. I look forward to seeing you build your own empire… it’s going to rock!
Dear Valerie,
I just came across your blog and read this post which I found both stimulating, eloquent and genuinely enlightening – thank you!
I can certainly identify with your struggles – I started studying at 19, switching between widely disparate subjects (from sociology to biology to vocational agriculture to nursing, add about 5 other fields) every one to two years until my 32nd year, taking a couple of year’s leave in between to experience living in a materially poor (but spiritually vibrant) Central American country (Honduras). At 32 I began studying Arabic, which I got my Master’s in at 39. I got my first job at 37 (as a teacher of Norwegian to adult immigrants). Presently I’m studying to obtain a teacher’s license (for teaching English and Social Science in Secondary and High School), and it seems this will be the profession I’m settling for!
In our present age of postmodernist values, which includes rejecting the idea that any intellectual or moral authority should exist whatsoever, I know that I am going against the grain by quoting several passages from a single source. The reference, though, I seems of particular relevance to the context of your post. It refers to the “current paradigm for economic development”–into which I read, as much, the concept of /personal/ development. The following proposal seemed to resonate with the experiences you have kindly related: “meaningful work is a basic need of the human soul, as important to the proper development of the individual as nutritious food, clean water and fresh air are to the physical body.”
Greetings from Oslo!
(From the statement “Turning Point For All Nations”, ch. IV, A. “Promoting Economic Development” http://info.bahai.org/article-1-7-5-1.html#IV)
“A dispassionate examination of these factors betrays a common systematic and fundamental flaw in the current paradigm for economic development: material needs are often addressed without taking into account the spiritual factors and their motivating power.
“Development should not become confused with the creation of an unsustainable consumer society. True prosperity encompasses spiritual as well as material well-being. Food, drink, shelter and a degree of material comfort are essential, but human beings cannot and never will find fulfillment in these necessities. Nor is contentment to be found in the somewhat more intangible material attainments such as social recognition or political power. Ultimately, not even intellectual achievement satisfies our deepest needs.
“It is in the hunger for something more, something beyond ourselves, that the reality of the human spirit can be properly understood. Although the spiritual side of our nature is obscured by the day-to-day struggle for material attainment, our need for the transcendent cannot long be disregarded. Thus a sustainable development paradigm must address both the spiritual aspirations of human beings and their material needs and desires.
“Education is the best investment in economic development….”Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.”30 Education implies more than a process of mastering a narrow body of knowledge or learning a set of life skills. In truth, education, which should be a fundamental imperative of development, must also teach the process for knowledge acquisition, cultivate the powers of intellect and reasoning, and infuse the student with indispensable moral qualities.
“It is this comprehensive approach to education that allows people to contribute to the creation of wealth and encourage its just distribution. 31
“Genuine wealth is created when work is undertaken not simply as a means of earning a livelihood but also as a way to contribute to society. We hold that meaningful work is a basic need of the human soul, as important to the proper development of the individual as nutritious food, clean water and fresh air are to the physical body.”
Alex´s last blog ..Passing of University founder, prominent philanthropist, Dr. Eloy Anello [SERVICE], [LOVE]
@ Alex: Hello and welcome! Thanks for taking the time to comment and for sharing these great excerpts.
Your comment has definitely opened my eyes even more to how education is defined. I am pretty much at loss for words by the story of your educational journey. It’s definitely not very often we see someone so passionate about the simple act of learning; it’s really refreshing to me to hear from someone who isn’t always racing to achieve some goal without thinking about what it really means to them and how is it helping them spiritually. Life isn’t always a race!
And that’s the problem with education: people see it as a means to and end… a race to achieve the ability to accumulate material goods and prestige. It’s not seen as a journey or a way to enhance ourselves spiritually at all. I often hear a lot of people say there’s no such thing as too much education but often I wonder how they see education. A lot of people also believe that education is overrated and there IS such a thing as too much education; I also wonder what’s going on there in their relationship with education. To top it all, there is so much wrong with schooling that the educational system (in the U.S., at least), needs to be seriously overhauled. Education isn’t enjoyable for many people anymore and I think the main culprit is the standardization/institutionalization/compartmentalization of education.
There’s a lot more I could add to this, but I think I’ll keep it short, lest I write another post within a post
But seriously, I really thank you for dropping by and sharing your experiences and your reading. I hope to hear more from you and I’ll be checking out your blog as well.
Great article! I agree that having the degree title does not matter but it’s more about finding yourself on the journey. Of course it’s a difficult journey that is filled with heartache and confusion but if you make it out then you will have the world in your hands.
@ Frank: Hello and welcome!
I’m glad I went through (and am still going through it) all now. I think not settling has really opened a lot more doors. Thanks for dropping by, I appreciate it!
It definitely isn’t a walk in the park but I guess the cliché comment applies here: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
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